


2: Boo-Boo

by bluebirdcastiel



Series: Hunters Who Hunt No More [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, M/M, part deux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebirdcastiel/pseuds/bluebirdcastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been mere days since Sam’s departure and already Dean was falling apart.</p><p>Again, Sam is gone, this time leaving Dean home because he's injured, thus inspiring Dean and Cas to ponder a life without hunting in it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2: Boo-Boo

**Author's Note:**

> {{ part deux, i hope you like it <3 }}

It had been mere days since Sam’s departure and already Dean was falling apart. It wasn’t even that Dean was unable to cope without his brother, more that he felt the need to repeatedly prove to no one in particular that he was able, thus inspiring him to do more and more outlandish things all on his own that three broken ribs, a fractured ankle and a concussion would not support him through. It was only after falling in the shower for the third time that Dean realised how pointless it all was when only one person was even observing his efforts, this person being Cas, who had been called for each and every time to come and save Dean from the increasingly ridiculous predicaments he’d gotten himself into in his stubborn refusal to admit that he was too hurt to hunt. Sam had outright banned him from the job. And Dean, without realising it, had spent the days since his brother had left attempting to prove himself fit for practice. He had, undeniably, failed.

Today, Castiel, fallen as he was, had slept in, which for him entailed a full fourteen hours of sleep where anything over six would be an outstanding feat for Dean. He ambled into the main room of the bunker with messy hair and sleepy eyes and regarded Dean with what could only be described as the sigh of a weary parent. Dean had, quite frankly, become something of a troublesome child in days of late and Cas was sick of it.  
‘Dean, you are ridiculous,’ Cas said, voice rough from sleep and blatantly exasperated. Dean turned slowly to face him, perched as he was on a dining chair, hands at the very top of the storage unit that contained an extensive collection of records and LPs, courtesy both of the Men of Letters and Dean himself, who had added several of his favourites to the pile recently.  
‘What? They’re not gonna alphabetise themselves!’ he said. Castiel rolled his eyes, ever the dramatist, and wandered to the kitchen, fixing himself some coffee and sniffing at the clock with pride when he realised he had slept well into the afternoon. It had almost become a game, this humanity of his. Upon moving into the bunker, Cas had found it softened the harshness of his newfound reality somewhat to test his stamina in certain areas; how long he go without sleep or without showering before someone realised, even going so far as too see how many hours he could go without food, though that had ended badly when he had fainted in the library and Dean had yelled at him, holding his shoulders tight in his hands, told him to stop being so damned stupid and to take care of himself, because Dean couldn’t deal with losing him again, not like that. In light of this talking to and how earnest Dean had been, Cas had changed tack somewhat and these days prided himself on being the most indulgent, lazy, good-for-nothing human there ever had been, because if attempting to enjoy ones unwanted humanity wasn’t taking care of oneself then what was?

There was a yelp and Cas put down his coffee with another eye roll before rushing in to see the damage. Sure enough, there was Dean, now sitting on the chair upon which he had been standing, cradling his fractured ankle with an expression of agony upon his face. Castiel approached him and looked down at him, trying to seem as smug as he could because he had known that Dean would hurt himself.  
‘You shut your mouth,’ Dean said, through gritted teeth, though Cas had only spoken through his eyes.  
‘You really should take your own advice, Dean,’ Cas said. He held out his hands and Dean gratefully took them, letting Cas support him as he hobbled into the little sitting room by the library where he fell with a huff down onto the couch and Cas lay his busted ankle on a cushion.  
‘Oh yeah, and what advice is that, huh?’ he said, as Cas retrieved his coffee from the kitchen and settled on the armchair nearby, facing Dean, legs drawn up to his chest, bare feet against the aged leather.  
‘About taking care of yourself – if I have to, so do you. I fail to see why you’re allowed to be destructive purely because you’re doing it as a matter of warped internal pride,’ Cas raised his eyebrows and Dean narrowed his eyes in response.  
‘Yeah well I’ve been a human my whole life, ok, I know how to handle myself.’  
Clearly, he didn’t. By the end of the fourth day without Sam, the day before his alleged return no less, Dean banged his head trying to fix a high shelf and the initial concussion was only doubled. Dean was dizzy and nauseous, spent the whole afternoon with his head in Cas’s lap while Cas read a children’s book aloud to him, one hand holding the old hard-back volume, one buried in Dean’s hair, petting, affectionate. The pounding in his head was unbearable. Dean was forced to admit defeat; the injuries had come about on their last hunt, Dean’s first since the falling of the Angels and this whole thing with Cas, and though it had hardly been a bog-standard salt and burn it had not been something so difficult that Dean should have gotten himself hurt trying to fight it. He was losing his touch after two months off the job, two months sitting with Cas and sleeping with Cas and concocting his own pie recipes in his multitude of spare time. Not only that but he didn’t much care that he was losing said touch, at least not outside his bruised ego since Sammy had had to bail him out of a fairly simple hunt when he’d been knocked out cold by a weedy demon. If Dean was entirely honest with himself, that one hunt had been but a blip upon his otherwise tranquil existence since Heaven had fallen – whether that made him insensitive and ignorant, he wasn’t sure, for he was certain that there was turmoil going on outside of his bunker – and he didn’t much look forward to getting better if it meant he had to keep on doing that.

Graceless or not, Cas read Dean as easily as he did the pages in his lap.  
‘Stop fretting, Dean, you’ll only make the headache worse,’ he said. Dean did not reply. ‘It’s ok to move on, you know,’ Cas said next, closing the book and stroking gentle fingers down Dean’s neck with his spare hand. Dean closed his eyes. ‘I for one never want to hunt again. It’s been proven that, no matter how good my intentions are, I only ever make things worse. But I’m human now and so I shall live as one. I’m not a hunter. And you, Dean, you’re not a hunter, either, not anymore. Not if you don’t want to be.’ He spoke with a quiet confidence, as if he’d thought about this as much as Dean had and was sure of his conclusions. Dean turned slowly in his lap so that he was looking up at Castiel’s face. Baby blue eyes drifted down to meet his.  
‘So what, we just give up? Leave the mess to Sammy and the others? I can’t do that, Cas, I can’t just leave them in the shit while we stay here and play happy family,’ Dean said, voice rough with the weight of the discussion. Cas merely shook his head, with a smile.  
‘Of course not, Dean, I’m not suggesting we leave and never look back – this is our life, now, whether we like it or not, but we don’t have to join Sam in the field. Even Sam doesn’t have to stay in the field, we have the bunker and the work of the Men of Letters to guide us; perhaps we could orchestrate events from behind the scenes somewhat?’  
‘Like Bobby did?’ Cas nodded. ‘Like, we do all the research and send other people out to do the killing?’ Again, Cas nodded and Dean mulled this over for a while. He thought of Garth and his many connections, how he could utilise that wealth of hunters to essentially do their bidding, help people without having to leave his newfound domestic bliss. It felt selfish, to think such things, but Dean had never been selfish, not like that, and a part of him felt he deserved it after everything. Cas, too, Cas deserved this more than anyone Dean knew, for as much as Castiel blamed himself for the many troubles in Heaven and it's ultimate fall, Dean knew full well that Cas had been acting with such good intentions; his heart was so _good_  and Dean was desperate to prove it to him.   
‘Yes,’ Cas said, distant but dreamy in his expression. A quiet descended, then, and they sat in it, floated in it as if it were a cloud, a potential ride up out of the stupor Dean had found himself stuck in of late. HIs mind was screaming out at the utter _indulgence_ that giving up the real hunting game to play Men of Letters would be, how _wrong_ it felt to do something that he would benefit from, but when he really thought about it he knew that it made sense. They had Cas, had the fullest knowledge out of everyone on Earth about what had truly happened and it was therefore their responsibility to act as the brains of the operation, rather than mindlessly shooting at things. Getting killed on silly hunting jobs wasn’t going to be much help to anyone with regards to the heaven situation. Dean slowly came to be sure of the idea.

No more was said of their musings until Sam came home. For the rest of that night, Cas petted Dean’s hair, his head still sore, took him to bed and kissed his cheek and his temple while he drifted into a deep sleep.


End file.
